Thursday's Therapy - Violent Death: Restorative Retelling

Thursday's Therapy

Violent Death: Restorative Retelling

Part Six

"Coping" with Violent Death

It is critically important in surviving the violent death of a loved one that you become able to cope with the horror and trauma of death while walking through and staying connected with the vitality of one's own life.

After surviving Merry Katherine's death for three years and almost ten months now, I will tell you this "coping" amidst the "vitality of one's own life" is not an easy feat to accomplish. Being so strongly connected to my children and having one ripped out of the very center of the fabric of my life feels like having my very heart ripped out.

As an example of my ongoing debilitation by the severe loss...

I have been practicing as a mental-health counselor (psychotherapist) for over thirty-years in private-practice, working with people who are troubled mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually and who feel very "stuck" in that pain. My job is to help them get "unstuck" and move forward with meaning and wholeness... This work can be extremely challenging and intensive as I often work with very traumatized and/or abused individuals.

With a loss of such magnitude as the death of my child's, I was almost completely stymied in doing very much at all of my life's work.

How could I help someone troubled and stuck when I was even more troubled and stuck?

My "full-time job" needed to be my own grief work; I could do a little of my counseling "on the side" at stable points in the midst of my grief-work. (And I never knew when those stable times would be, so the few clients I had coming in had to check with me on their given appointment day to see if that day would still work for me amidst my grief.) So it has been an arduous process so far to walk through this grief in a way that will be comforting and will allow the time for the tedious processing through each and every component of grief that arises (and often arises again and again).

If we cannot learn to speak and/or write out our grief over our child's violent death (and to me, all deaths of a child are violent), we will get stuck in the overwhelming grief process. And what a potentially overwhelming job is before us:

It has been our job to nurture, protect, and facilitate our child's continued growth toward adulthood; when that job is abruptly brought to a standstill in their death, we too are brought to a standstill. All that we stand for has been attacked. All the love in our hearts for our child has been brutally assaulted. One of our precious children to whom our lives are most dedicated has been accosted and demolished. Now, we are to try to live?

I tell my clients,

"There is no cure for grief, but there can be comfort found within the grieving process.

So the real key to working through the lifelong grief process is to keep the grief flowing."

***

Now Tommy and I spend much time walking through our grief, but when the grief compounded for him after two years (the numbness does begin wearing off...), it was overwhelming for him. He began getting stuck in his grief process...

Tommy shared tonight that in November of 2008, about two years after Merry Katherine's death, he found himself just wanting to die he was so depressed. After getting a laptop computer the following Christmas (of 2008), he began journaling around February of 2009. After journaling for awhile, he found his deep depression lifting so that he could function better (and have some sense of hope)...He has continued to feel much relief after such a frightening depression though grief continues to be extremely painful. He said tonight,

"If we don't effectively communicate (and process through) our grief, the violent death of our child will pull us down. It has a grip on us that won't let go if we don't consciously walk it through and keep it talked and/or written out."

***

In "Trauma-Therapy-speak," scientists studying the brain are discovering

Severe grief like child-loss grief can actually do damage to the brain.

The traumatized hippocampus actually begins shrinking!

The trauma is so severe that when it comes into the brain through the senses, it gets stuck in the amygdala, as the amygdala, very aware of the severity of the trauma, shuts down the pathways for that trauma to go anywhere else in the brain but shut up in the area of the brain called the hippocampus to thus enable the traumatized person to take ACTION, to "run," to "get out of danger," to "escape" for safety.

But this particular trauma of child-loss cannot be escaped in that way. So, we have to learn how to reach the trauma-material hidden within our hippocampus to process the trauma out effectively, coaxing the amygdala to let a little out at a time for us to "walk-through," and yet still function as a vital, alive person that is not completely overwhelmed by the trauma.

As we have discussed in former Thursday Therapy posts, it is critical to move that trauma material on through the brain, carving out new neural passageways similar to when we were a baby.

The trauma must move from the amygdala and the hippocampus into the prefrontal lobe of the brain so that the grief and trauma stored as horrifying, traumatizing sensations can be processed into a coherent, meaningful story which doesn't

• deny our child's death ("avoidance"), nor
• fixate on our child's death ("possession"), but
• encompasses our child's death within the narrative of the rest of our life's story which includes the vitality of our life and the vitality of our child's life ("restorative retelling").

***

Naming

When God created the Heavens and earth, He called forth, "named" things into being. When He separated light from dark, He "named" them. He called the light "day," and the dark "night." When He created the first man, He "named" him Adam. Then He commissioned Adam to "name" the different components of his universe including his own mate and all of the animals and other living "beings" in the world!

God even continues to call us to "Name" our reality. The way He designed our brain, it seems He wants us to continue "naming" His world, including the dynamics one cannot see, like coping with our child's death, incorporating the understanding we have with the meaning that each aspect of our traumatic grief has for us as it is experienced and processed in our life.

The reason good therapy works is that it helps us to put names on the realities and dynamics in our life so that we can become healthier in dealing with those realities. Therapy helps us to reframe our life into a coherent narrative that reflects our life's meaning, and challenges us to grapple with, and find meaning in those hurdles that come our way.

So too we in our grief, must learn to process the grief on a regular basis, giving name to what we discover.

If we find ourselves getting "stuck," it is so important to seek out those whom we trust and respect to help us process through our thoughts and feelings until we get "unstuck" and thus can continue the healthy flow of our grief.

***

The way that Dr. Edward K. Rynearson explains this Healing Process is so profound, I told Tommy that for a counselor in the work of helping people cope in life,

"Rynearson's following words are tantamount in importance for the psychotherapist in dealing with, and helping others to deal with, traumatic child-loss as would be the importance to the scientist of the discovery of the cure for cancer:"

Dr. Rynearson:

"Violent dying is overwhelming because of its immediacy and physicality. The imaginary reenactment {playing over and over the violence our child experienced} is consuming because the family member has no distance or referent to protect them from the nameless terror."

'When terror and violent dying are nameless, they are disintegrating. There is an intimate link between naming, subjective meaning, and restoration.'

~(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980)

"Through naming the terror and retelling the violent dying, a symbol (word) and narrative (coherence) is created that contains the experience independent of its immediacy and physicality.

Naming and retelling gives a mediated relation to the experience. In being named and retold, the experience is rendered both present and absent. It is through language that the dying experience becomes suspended and objectified in a matrix of time and space.

The experience can be transformed with subjective meaning, through a symbolic and imaginary revision and restoration.

The clinician encourages naming and retelling of the violent death by listening and helping the family member tolerate and contain his or her terror. However, repeatedly naming and retelling the violent death is a form of possession.

A restorative retelling includes naming and retelling vital and life-affirming experiences that encompass and counterbalance the dying."

***

Rynearson describes some holocaust victims who held onto their grief in an unhealthy way so that it was not within a healing process, but was debilitating to the point of not being able to reclaim any of the vitality of life again:

These holocaust victims left oral recordings of their harrowing, victimizing experiences, but they seemed to relate their violent experiences in the manner that Rynearson refers to as "repeatedly naming and retelling the (violence)" in a way that is debilitating -- he calls this dynamic "possession," (being so possessed by the horror that any vital living is almost impossible):

{These particular holocaust victims told their story within a theme of} "deprival rather than survival, devoid of life-affirming value... (T)hose this identified with their memory of such massive atrocity cannot trust or commit to living again. They have been so dehumanized by the atrocity that they cannot be restored. No matter how they try, they cannot fully reconnect with the rapture of being alive."

He contrasted these victims (described above) who never left the debilitating phases of grief with the other healthier victims who were able to find meaning even amidst their debilitating sorrow, and thus were able to form a restorative narrative that helped them to heal even amidst their devastating situation:

"Subjective meaning gives a structure and direction to ongoing living. The structure and direction pivot on two unique human capacities--

• a conscious ordering of experience through the coherence of language, and
• a conscious choice in directing action.

Consciousness creates a transcendent meaning through symbolic language and elective acts.

These life-affirming words and enactments are the foundation of a meaningful restorative narrative. Meaning does not create an ending to the narrative of violent death, but begins a continuing life narrative that includes it."

***

Again, thank you so much to Dr. Edward K. Rynearson for his very knowledgeable help in teaching us how to better process through our violent-death grief.

Appreciation to Dr. Edward K. Rynearson, M.D., psychiatrist, author of Retelling Violent Death

Thursday’s Therapy - Violent Death: Restorative Retelling - Part Five

Thursday’s Therapy

Violent Death: Restorative Retelling

Part Five

Distinctions Between

Violent Death and Child-Loss

As I discussed the findings last week of Dr. Edward K. Rynearson, (a psychiatrist and a victim of his wife’s violent death) in his book, Retelling Violent Death:

Death creates irreversible loss of our loved one. Such permanent separation causes Separation Distress. Such sudden and unforeseen loss of our child through death, a complete separation, creates a longing and searching for reunion with our lost child to relieve our grief and distress.

Dr. Rynearson of course does not separate out child-loss from other losses of loved ones. He generally studies and treats victims of violent loss.

In describing violent loss, Rynearson distinguishes "Separation Distress" from “Trauma Distress”:

Separation Distress is the distress that happens to loved ones of a deceased victim because we are irreversibly separated from this person we love. Such abrupt and permanent loss leaves the grieving loved ones intent on establishing a psychological and physical connection with the living presence, and with the longing for an embracing reunion with the loved one's vitality.

Trauma Distress refers to the added distress we feel because of the violent dying of our loved one due to the violent way in which s/he died.

Dr. Rynearson considers Trauma Distress to be the more powerful and intense of the two distresses, yet he admits Separation Distress is much more complex to walk through as we must reprocess all of our emotional connection with our deceased loved one. (A very arduous, tedious, and emotionally intense process indeed.)

***

I think I would argue with Dr. Rynearson when he says that Trauma Distress is "more powerful and intense" than Separation Distress.

Trauma Stress is induced in me by the violence that my child had to undergo in the car crash on that fateful night that brought her death about. Yes, her violent death is powerful and very disturbing in many ways! It can bring me to my knees in a heart-beat and often does.

However, to me the more powerful impact on me long-term, is that each and every day for the rest of my life, I will be forced to be separate from my precious child, no matter how she died.

Both types of distress are very difficult and powerful, and will crop up to haunt the surviving parent at any given time, each capable of taking you back to square one in your pain, anguish and loss.

We have to remember as we study his very helpful book about the restorative retelling of violent death, that Rynearson is describing ALL types of violent deaths of loved ones, while

We are dealing with

the severest form of grief possible...

the death of one’s own child.

***

Rynearson calls “possession” the state of being so consumed by any aspect(s) of grief, that one loses the “governance” of one’s life – in other words, is so “possessed” by grief that the griever becomes debilitated in returning to life’s pre-death normalcy.

***

{Wouldn’t you say “Possession” in these terms is the very definition of the effects of child-loss grief?!}

***

To reiterate, these are the types of “possessions” that Rynearson cites as events or dynamics that could heighten a person’s risk factor as s/he goes through grief:

• reenactment - playing over and over in our minds the possible features of the loved one’s violent death,

• reuniting - doing whatever is necessary to find and reestablish an idealized attachment to one’s child, or otherwise remaining inconsolable,

• remorse - feeling guilty or responsible that we could not stop the death,

• retaliation - a cold rage and strong desire for revenge for the death, and

• overprotection - going into high alert to prevent (what-feels-like) the impending loss of any other family members after we so helplessly have lost our deceased loved one.

Dr. Rynearson does acknowledge that (some) parents in their child loss are different from other grievers:

"A significant minority of family members, perhaps 30% of parents (Murphy, 1999), suffer persistent thoughts of reenactment, remorse, retaliation, and overprotection, for years instead of months.”

***

Here again, I would beg to differ with the doctor...

Depending on the intensity of the relationship one has with his/her child, I would bet that MOST parents suffer fairly persistent thoughts of reenactment, remorse, retaliation, and/or overprotection, for years instead of months.

The Loss of a loved one is

quite different from

the Loss of one’s own child.

In many ways, comparing the two types of losses – Loss of a family member versus the Loss of a child is, in my opinion, like comparing apples and oranges; they belong to completely different types and severities of loss.

When one has not lost a child (which I believe is true for the above professionals), I believe it is almost unimaginable for anyone but a child-loss parent to even begin to understand the kinds of devastation that are wreaked by such a loss as child-loss.

So unless a professional has actually experienced such a tragic, disastrous loss as child-loss, perhaps s/he should not even think they could capture the severity of child-loss grief anywhere near accurately.

***

I do appreciate however, the contributions Dr. Rynearson is making to help us better understand the particular stressors that come with encountering any violent death of a loved one. These concepts offer vital tools to helping us better grapple with some of the "crazy-making" ruminations that are also part and parcel of child-loss grief.

Excerpts from Dr. Edward K. Rynearson's book, Retelling Violent Death

Thursday’s Therapy - Resilience - Why Can't We Grievers "Get On" With Life?

Thursday's Therapy

Resilience

"You need rest, sunshine, and lots of hugs from Daddy."

All the very things I need, but for which, I am not taking enough time out!

Thursday’s Therapy

Resilience -

Why Can't We Grievers "Get On" with Life?

The Incoherence of Intense Distress

of the Violent Death of our Child

The death and violent dying of an emotionally valued person is an external and indirect threat. It is rare that we were at risk of our own violent dying. Instead, the distress is provoked by the persistent memory of the vulnerability of the person as s/he was being killed. Because of the caring connection, the external event of violent dying is transformed into an internalized memory of the killing.

We have two major stresses going on in the violent loss of our child:

1) Death creates irreversible loss of our child which causes Separation Distress. Such sudden and unforeseen loss of our child through death, a complete separation creates a longing and searching for reunion with our lost child to relieve our grief and distress.

2) The violent death creates an additional Trauma Distress to the way our child died. Our central nervous system is programmed to process the trauma of violent dying before the more complex reprocessing of the (above) emotional connection with the deceased. We will struggle with numbness and shock, avoidance, and reenactment fantasies.

Many parents will suffer -- for years -- persistent thoughts of reenactment (playing over and over in our minds the possible violent death of our child), remorse (feeling guilty or responsible that we could not stop their death), retaliation (a cold rage and strong desire for revenge for the killing of our child), and overprotection (going into high alert to prevent what-feels-like the impending imminent loss of other family members after we so helplessly have lost this child).

The author calls this phenomenon of some or all of these thoughts swirling through our system "possession."

(I wonder if he uses this term to show that traumatic grief in-a-way "possesses" you so that it takes on a life of its on...?)

The problem with "possession" is that it interferes with our reengagement to living as the death feels like a "right-now" experience despite the passage of time.

The author does stipulate that all of these raging thought processes are

"a rudimentary accompaniment to the processing of the dying memory and should not be interpreted as abnormal."

Yet he goes on to say...

However, when possessive fantasies of violent dying do not spontaneously diminish, the teller becomes a helpless witness or subject within the awareness (of all these devastating thoughts and feelings), having lost governance of himself or herself.

Hopefully next week, we will pursue these above "possessions" (+ an added "possession" of "reuniting" we will discuss later):

• Reenactment of the dying itself, with the teller only a helpless witness
• Remorse, "I should have prevented this from happening"
• Retaliation, "Someone else needs to pay for what happened."
• Overprotection, "I will not allow this to happen (to anyone I love) again.
• Reuniting, "I will do whatever it takes to find and reestablish my idealized attachment to my child, or I will remain inconsolable."

Again, the author admits that processing each of these dynamics at some level is needed and is normal to the grief process,

but if and when we become consumed by any one of them, it then leads to prolonged problems for our "reengagement to life."

^

|

|

{I'm afraid I'm there... At least it feels like it!}

*******

But before we can effectively resolve any of the above issues, the psychiatrist Rynearson highly recognizes what we in the trauma-field understand is the first call-for-action, and that is to establish an emotional "safety zone" for oneself.

To give you an analogy to better climb into the need for this, it is a lot like what I experienced in physical therapy this year when I broke three bones in my pelvic girdle (which the orthopedic surgeon said was, in essence, like me being split in two, right down the middle!).

Each time I went to physical therapy, they made sure I was working on strengthening my body - yet always from a certain comfort-zone - to ensure healthy recovery. Always checking for the level of pain I was feeling from Zero to Ten in pain from zero being no pain to speak of up to ten being unbearable pain. They really didn't want me to get much over a "2" or "3" so that my body would endure the stress to build strength but not so much stress that it would do more harm than good.

So a certain zone of safety and comfort is important, even while stressing our systems for the needed growth to process through to healthiness.

To Restore Resilience

Before developing your restorative retelling of your child’s death, it is important for your healing that you to know how to “return to safety," essentially to know how to “float” amidst the storm of grief. Retelling your child’s story is very important to your healing process, but it can be triggering and possibly overwhelming if you do not pace yourself in the process. Thus it is important to learn how to achieve a calm base for a sense of “safety.” The following are pathways to that sense of safety.

Pacification (Self-Calming/Soothing) - Physical actions that encourage relaxation. Pacification is essential as a basis for limiting the primal experience of disintegrating terror. (Again, we don't want too much emotional pain, though pushing through some emotional pain is healthy and strengthening in the long fun. The old saying, "No pain, no gain" is essentially true!)

It is important to learn how to achieve both an ability to process both the traumatic loss and its incumbent memories and all of the myriad emotions that such loss and memories stir up within you. But it is equally important to learn how to effectively distance from the traumatic effects of grief at times so that you can have sweet reprieve from such deep grief. Thus it is important to learn how to be able to "float" above the riptide of your child-loss trauma, or even the seemingly-endless emotional agony that goes with it.

Consider what kinds of things soothe your senses and begin to help yourself by practicing these things:

· Deep-breathing,

· Meditation,

· Relaxing in the warm waters of a bath or spa,

· Basking in the sunshine,

· Painting or artwork,

· Watching a funny show or movie,

· Loosening up muscle groups,

· Creative writing,

· Sitting outside and watching nature,

· Guided imagery...for example, imagining God holding you and comforting you as you lay your head down on your pillow to drift off to sleep.

Partition (Separateness/Self-discrimination) It is essential in establishing a limitation or boundary between the experiential worlds of "me" and "not-me." Also, it is important that we develop a separateness from the violent trauma so that we do not as Rynearson says, “disintegrate with (our child) in their dying story.”

Perspective (Self-transcendence) It is essential to allow time to penetrate our experience so that we can begin to anticipate change. In this way, time will bring change by the parent's transcending and prevailing in a restorative scheme and procedure (Rynearson will define at least one such procedure for us {hopefully to come in a later post}).

Keeping the Overall Picture, which includes not only the traumatic ending but also the positives of pondering the sweet times of the days my child was here with me, all of which help me to maintain a more constructive focus. To get to some of these positives, you may want to answer the following questions for yourself.

Tell about your child as s/he was, living with you...

(...Since there is more to my child than just her death.)

Look at pictures of your child as s/he was happy, smiling…

(Recalling these happy times keeps the mind from settling in on violent scenes that were only a part of your child's life.)

How would your child feel about your asking for help?

(It is helpful to engage the image or essence of your deceased child as a supportive ally in processing through the grief story. When I hear from my precious daughter, it is usually very affirming!)

What would s/he say that you need now?

...I can just hear Merry Katherine telling me,

"You need rest, sunshine, and lots of hugs from Daddy."

{All the very things I need, but for which, I'm not taking enough time out!}

And on that note, and at this late hour, I think I WILL go and rest now! And now that we know some of the ways in which we can get centered again in the midst of our deep grief, next week I hope to examine some of the areas (Rynearson calls "possessions") in which we get "stuck" in our grief...

Paraphrased and quoted from Edward K. Rynearson's book, Retelling Violent Death